


Amaryllis

by QuillEnvy



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 02:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15571341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillEnvy/pseuds/QuillEnvy
Summary: Ryll didn't mind being the Inquisitor, she had to deal with unwanted tasks in the Carta. It was the dreaming that came with the fade mark  and a significant loss she didn't know how to deal with.





	Amaryllis

**Author's Note:**

> Saw something about a Dwarven Inquisitor suddenly being able to dream with the mark and thought how would my Cadash feel about it. Also needed to get a word in with the Bianca threat, because my Cadash would have never stood for that. Also a bit about my Cadash's background.  
> Starts at the end of Varric's loyalty mission. 
> 
> Any grammatical, formatting or spelling errors are mine.

Ryll stood there staring at Bianca after Varric had walked away. She was still gob smacked that anyone could be so careless.  Bianca released the string of her bow and fitted it into the harness across her back.

Her head tilted to the side, “Get him killed, Inquisitor, and I will feed you your own eyeballs.”

She started to take a step forward to follow Varric out of the room when Ryll exploded into action. She grabbed Bianca by the arm and crossed her right forearm over Bianca’s chest pushing her to the wall. It was helpful they were close to the same size, but Ryll was stronger. Bianca may be handy with a hammer, but it wasn’t the same as wearing half your body weight in armor and swinging a great sword around. Bianca grunted softly as Ryll pushed her into the wall.  She narrowed her quartz colored eyes at Bianca, and spoke right into her face.

“Blood or coin, Davri. I will get _my_ cut. I am sure that the Kalnath would find it interesting that _you_ came to him.”

Bianca’s eyes widened and she paled. She swallowed a couple of times “You wouldn’t.” She whispered.

Ryll slowly grinned. It was the same smile she gave when charging into a group of demons or at a dragon. It was a smile that said _try me._

Bianca looked down and to Ryll’s left. She started to mumble an apology but Ryll wasn’t having it. She grabbed Bianca’s chin and forced her head back up.

“If you’re going to give me a half assed apology you best be looking at me when you do it.” Ryll shoved Bianca back into the wall again and left the room. Varric was waiting at the bottom of the stairs leading back up to the terrace.

 He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, “What is taking so long?” 

Ryll raised an eyebrow back.  “Not much. Bianca wanted to know where I stood on a few things. We, mmm, came to an understanding.”

 Ryll smirked at Varric’s puzzled look as she brushed by him and headed up the stairs. Half way up she started whistling one of the tunes that Maryden had penned. She heard Varric ask Bianca what was going on. She didn’t wait to hear Bianca’s reply, figuring that she would twist the encounter to make Ryll the aggressor. Whatever helped Bianca sleep at night, Ryll had no illusions about whom or what she was.

 She found Dorian and Solas waiting outside the cave entrance discussing something about one of Genitivi’s books when she emerged into the sunlight. Ryll stretched her arms above her head and lifted her face to the sun.

“Maker I hate caves.” She said. “It’s good to be back out in the sunshine!”

“Where is Varric, Inquisitor?” Solas inquired mildly.

“He should be along with Bianca. They were right behind me. Let’s go down to that camp and wait for them. The spray from the waterfall is getting inside my armor and I don’t feel like dealing with chafing that comes with damp cloth and leather…” Ryll said as she skipped down the stairs set into the side of the ledge where the entrance to Valamaar was. Used to her odd moods they followed along and resumed their conversation.

Sitting on the tongue of the broken wagon Ryll began to clean her sword. She watched as Varric and Bianca emerged from the entrance. Varric looked like thunderclouds and Bianca confused and hurt. They were half way down the stairs when she grabbed Varric’s arm to stop him. She spoke a few words and he knocked her hand away. The way he made abrupt sharp motions with his hands told Ryll he was as angry as she had ever seen him. Bianca put her hand to her mouth and her eyes got wide. She pushed past him and took off without even looking at the camp.  Varric watched her go and ran a hand over his face. His shoulders slumped and he let out a huge sigh. He looked up and saw Ryll watching him as he walked slowly to where they were waiting.

The group was finally on the way back to Skyhold and Ryll listened to Solas and Dorian’s book discussion with half an ear. Varric’s uncharacteristic silence while travelling had her slightly worried. She liked the others in her inner circle well enough, but it was odd not having another dwarf to watch your back. So Varric went out the majority of the time. She knew that this revelation with Bianca was going to be tough to get through. Betrayal was hard for people to overcome. More for those who were used to the casual cruelty that was the Carta. Lower ranks didn’t trust a soul. The higher you got in the organization you had to eventually trust someone. Most times it was only one other and that is because of mutual dirt on each other. 

Ryll stared at the road framed by her mounts ears and thought back on how things had been before she was assigned to the Enclave. She sighed. Ren would laugh himself sick at her gloomy attitude. Then ply her with wine and silliness, claiming all this inquisitor business had made her soft until she wanted to punch him. They would wind up in bed, sweaty and sated and her mood shifted to something calmer. But Ren was gone. His body was ash along with hundreds of others that littered the conclave grounds. If Ryll was religious at all she would think that this was some sort of lesson the Maker wanted her to learn. But if her time in the Carta taught her anything is that lessons don’t necessarily teach what the instructor wanted.

Her time in the Carta was full of lessons. Some were in cruelty and some were in skill. These lessons were designed to crush her compassion. To forge her into a brute that would swing a sword at whatever targets her handlers pointed her at. The lessons in brutality stopped when her handlers saw she could get results without using some of their harsher tactics.  Ryll had a good gamblers face. She had a will stronger than her handlers’ lessons. So she had been able to keep a small part of herself hidden, and her compassion lived there. When her handlers decided she had a pretty face, they thought to turn her education toward seduction and assassination. 

She scoffed at the attempts to make her sneaky and able to fade into the shadows. She told her handlers that she killed when required, but never needlessly and always cleanly. She would never stoop to a dagger in the back. She fought all comers for the right to use words or her sword. The duels Ryll fought were to be only to first blood, however being well versed in the treachery of the Carta, she killed the first opponent and then second. She offered the third a choice. Ryll was allowed to keep her greatsword that was taller than she was.  She knew of some who would taunt their targets, inflict the greatest amount of pain before the killing blow. She had never seen the benefit of it. It was better to kill swift, that way the fear of the Carta never turned to anything else.

It was at this point the leaders turned their eyes on her and decided to put their fingerprints on her education.  She was being groomed for leadership, pulled into the “family” of the Carta, the Kalneth. She was taught how to lead and craft threats comprised of words that cut just as deep as good steel. 

 Her graduation was to attend the conclave and gain new contacts to sell lyrium to. The damn building wasn’t supposed to blow to hell and gone.  Being thrust into the middle of a conflict was nothing new or remotely frightening. The worship from the believers amusing and annoying in turns.  This trip was to have earned her a step up, where she could use more words than steel and maybe just maybe have a few things for herself, not green magic on her hand and dreams that terrified her. This trip also wasn’t supposed to put her face to face with that silver tongued rogue Tethras either. She had met him for a fleeting moment once. She was part of a group that had been sent to warn him away from the Davri girl and stopped Gard from breaking his fingers. She remembered the way her mouth went dry when she had glanced into his eyes. They were color of Starkhaven Whiskey and made her feel just as dizzy. She gave him a quick once over, licked her lips and looked back at the burly dwarf sneering at the smirking Tethras. 

These thoughts ran riot in her head until the party dispersed after reaching the great hall. She was swept up by Josie and Sister Liliana to report and didn’t have time to mull over old thoughts that had surfaced on the way back from Valamaar. When the reporting was finished and Ryll was alone in her chambers for her solitary supper did those thoughts come back with a vengeance.

Ryll had looked at Gard and smiled. She told him that with Tethras injured it would surely be something to bring to the Davri girl for sympathy, and that would just cause them to have to come back and break something else of Tethras’. Wasted effort when there was no pay to be seen from this errand. Gard had agreed in the end. He didn’t like taking what he termed lackey jobs that paid nug shit.

That was a few years before Ren had charmed his way into her life. Ryll pushed thoughts of Ren away. They hurt. And she was sneaking around the great hall to find something stronger than the wine Josie supplied her with. She kept her pain a solitary thing. Held close and tight to her chest. She wrapped it in anger and a prickly disposition that held others at arms distance. Ryll preferred it that way.  The last time she let someone in they died an event that Ryll couldn’t handle again. Better to be cold and locked away, emotions always caused pain. This was one of the first lessons she had been taught and foolishly forgot when Ren wormed his way into her heart. She vowed to never let that happen again. But until she could encase her heart in stone she needed to drink until she passed out. That was the only way to keep the dreams at bay.

For a race that didn’t dream, the ability was alien at best. To someone who was afraid of little it was more than terrifying.

Moving toward Josie’s office to head to the kitchens in the lowest level of the castle, she knew there was some sort of wine cellar where stronger stuff was kept. A quick glance at Verric’s corner showed his booted feet up on the table. He was either staring into the fire or sleeping as he didn’t always go to his rooms. Shit. She was hoping to be alone. 

Ryll must have made some noise because he stood up and looked at her. Ryll swallowed and rubbed a foot over the other, suddenly and painfully aware she was barefoot, and in a night dress. A memory flooded her mind about when she had taken to wearing a sleeveless human shift to sleep in, ankle length on her, on a human it would be above the knees. She had found it in Starkhaven, it seemed like a lifetime time ago; the garment was covered in Antivan lace with amaryllis flowers worked into its design. It was old and soft. It was some noble human’s cast off but at the time, Ryll didn’t care. Ren had laughed, called her soft and bought it for her. It was the beginning for them. He loved to tease her, and when he found out her name was actually Amaryllis, he lost his composure completely, and would call her his flower. She would get flustered because no one else would have dared to ever say anything like that to her. She was dangerous and everyone knew it.

Eventually even the Kalneth expected the women to produce some sort of offspring and she suspected Ren has been put to the task of pairing with her. She had been so resistant, she was a negotiator and if that failed, an enforcer but she was not a brood mare and refused to be one for the Kalneth.  Ren wasn’t stupid and knew that if he pressed she would balk and the Kalneth would be angry at both of them. So he set out to woo her, but while he was trying, she was not and he got caught by his own feeling as well. Since it had worked in the Kalneth's favor, the leaders let them be. And it was enough for them both. They were a good team and got their assignments done swiftly and efficiently. The two figured out a way to work well together, even though it wasn’t smooth at first. She was arrogant, he was prickly. Ryll didn’t understand why he bothered her so much. Anyone else talked to her the way he did she would give them a look and they would back off. For some reason that look seemed to encourage Ren to be even more outrageous. He was never serious, even on jobs, it was infuriating. Ryll eventually discovered that Ren could be serious, and so very _focused_.

“Inquisitor.” The word was sharp, and Varric’s voice frosty.

Flinching slightly Ryll sighed. So they were back to that. She almost wished that she would have stuck around to hear what Bianca had said, but her anger pricked and she opened her mouth to say the most cutting thing that tripped off her tongue.

“Problem Tethras? Sad now that your fancy piece is really out of reach?”

Varric bristled at that, a flush spreading across his cheeks. He took several steps forward.

“Well, at least I didn’t get my _fancy piece_ killed.” He spat.

Ryll gasped, she never though he’d stoop to something so low. She took the remaining two strides and caught his jaw with a right hook. Varric stumbled back a step, and grunted with the impact. Ryll’s hands clenched into fists as she took deep breaths, struggling not to hit him again and again until his nose was crammed into his brain. She took a step back to keep herself in check. 

Ryll and Varric stood there staring at each other, the silence stretching out between them, a gulf almost impossible to cross. His jaw becoming discolored from where she had punched him.  

“Don’t you dare throw Ren in my face, Varric. He is dead. He is gone and he is _never_ coming back.” Ryll’s voice broke and she felt the burn of tears begin in her eyes. She pushed the heels of her hands into them to make it stop. She couldn’t cry. Not now, not ever. If she let herself feel grief, it would break her. “Bianca is alive, she just didn’t care enough to go against everyone and everything for you. That is not my fault. Talk to me about pain when you get to relive her death every night when you close your eyes. When you _dream._ ”  The word fell out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Varric watched as her eyes went round and she clapped both hands over her lips.  Varric didn’t think it was possible for a person to look worse than Ryll did at this moment, Andraste’s ass, he had seen better looking corpses.

Ryll backed away from Varric, hands still over her mouth and she began to shake. Those traitorous tears welled back up again. Ryll didn’t think she would be able to stop them. They were so close to the surface now and she knew she would shatter into a million pieces if they fell. She rubbed and arm over her eyes and turned to head back to her room when she tripped over a stool and fell hard to her hands and knees. She stayed there drawing in great lungfuls of air trying to quell the shitstorm of emotions rioting around inside her. She herd Varric walk over to where she was and kneel down. He started to reach for her when she flung a hand up to stop him. Any sort of touch, or comfort would be what opened the flood gates.

“No. Varric no.” she said. Voice watery with unshed tears.

Varric hesitated for all of three heartbeats. And wrapped his hands around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. Ryll started at the feel of his bare hands. He always, always wore leather gloves. He sat down in the middle of the great hall, and shifted her so she was cradled in his lap like a small child, and began to stroke her hair.

“Oh Ryll… Ryll, I am so sorry. I’m sorry. I will do better.” Varric’s voice was soft and full of grief.

“Better? You always say that you need to do better, but somehow you figure out ways to stab me in the heart.” She felt the tears slide down her cheeks and she was so tired. Tired of fighting her grief, tired of fighting for the Inquisition, for the Carta, for everyone but herself.

 “I miss him so much. And it’s so stupid, I knew. I _knew_ he had been sent to get me pregnant. The Kalnath wants us to have children just as much as the assembly wants noble women to pop out as many children as possible. Bolster the ranks…replace the ones lost. I was wary; he was trying so hard to be charming. I saw a healer when I was in Kirkwall asked for herbs so I wouldn’t conceive. He was kind. And told me which ones I would need and the dosage. Never looked askance at me for it. But he was human.” Ryll shrugged. “Anyway, I didn’t tell Ren. Not until a year ago. When I was sure. We had been together for five years by this point. We were going to be _permanent_.  The Kalnath agreed. Do you have any idea how rare that is?” Ryll sighed and closed her eyes.

 “After the conclave they were going to let us start a merchant stall in Ostwick. Ren and I knew we would be a fence, and a front for the Carta.  We had proven ourselves.  We could have a real family. We could raise our children. _Together_. Depending on how many we had we knew some of them would go into the Carta, but we would have some say on what they did. That is gone Varric. That dream is dead. And I want to be as well.” Ryll started to cry again.  Varric rocked her while making soothing noises.  After a while she stopped. Realizing that she had turned into him and was holding on to his neck as if he was the last solid thing in Thedas, she also became aware of how her face was buried in the crook of his neck and how good he smelled. Like wood conditioner, parchment and ink. Underneath that was a scent that Ryll thought unique to surface dwarves, it was like sun scorched stone and wind. It reminded her of Ren so deeply it was like a punch to the gut. She kept her eyes closed because if she did she could pretend that it was him holding her.


End file.
